Vaccination for forest staff leads to controversy

The District Health Officer of Mysuru has issued discover to two of his subordinates for vaccinating Forest Department personnel on the grounds that they weren’t frontline employees.

Mysuru DHO T. Amarnath sought a proof from the Taluk Health Officers of H.D.Kote and Nanjangud as to why the Forest Department staff had been vaccinated including that it has “drawn vehement objections from different officers within the State’’.

This has left the Forest Department staff fuming as it’s being perceived as a mirrored image of the federal government’s “step-motherly’’ angle in direction of them.

Senior officers within the Forest Department mentioned the tone and the tenor of the discover was in unhealthy style and it quantities to pitting one division towards the opposite although all had been equally concerned within the combat towards the pandemic. The DHO didn’t take calls for clarification.

Incidentally, the Forest Department had urged the federal government to contemplate them as frontline employees in order to obtain precedence vaccination. But within the record launched not too long ago during which the State authorities had notified employees from numerous fields and professions within the age group of 18 to 44 years as “frontline employees’’, the workers of the Forest Department weren’t listed beneath the class. They had been included in annexure 2 constituting “precedence group’’ and therefore had been eligible for vaccination in subsequent days after the protection of the primary group.

“It just isn’t that a whole bunch of Forest Department staff had been vaccinated in Mysuru. Only a handful of forest guards and discipline staff who always work together with the general public and threat contracting the virus, obtained the primary jab. Hence the discover was uncalled for’’, mentioned a senior official within the division on situation of anonymity.

There are practically 13,000 workers within the division of whom round 5,000 are within the 18 to 44 age group. Given the character of their work that entails discipline visits and interplay with the general public, and interesting in combing operations in areas of human-animal battle, the staff are on the threat of contracting the virus and at the very least 50 workers have misplaced their lives within the second wave thus far. Also, depletion of discipline staff due to COVID-19 might depart huge areas of forests unprotected and wildlife may very well be inclined to be poached, in accordance to officers.

When contacted Madhu Sharma, PCCF (Publicity and ICT), refused to touch upon the controversy however mentioned the federal government has been apprised of the imperatives of notifying the Forest Department staff as frontline employees. “A corrigendum correcting the sooner round and together with the Forest Department staff beneath frontline employees is predicted to be issued quickly’’, she added.

Recently, the Indian Forest Service Association representing the officers and discipline staff of the Forest Department additionally appealed to the Centre to recognise them as frontline employees and prioritise their vaccination.